The British songwriters’ performing rights organisation PRS for Music is suing SoundCloud.

It is taking legal action against the streaming service for not paying songwriters royalties when their music is used on the site.

In an email to PRS members, obtained by the Guardian, Karen Buse, executive director for membership and international, explained: “After careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations, we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against the online music service SoundCloud.”

The move comes after a tumultuous year for the streaming service, which launched in 2008 and now has more than 175m users per month. SoundCloud operated without music licences until last year, when it indicated that it intends to launch a subscription service. Since then, the Warner Music Group and independent labels represented by Merlin agreed to licence the service in the US.

There are rumours that a licensing agreement with Universal Music is expected imminently, but Sony Music recently pulled all of its music from SoundCloud after negotiations stalled.

Record label licences, however, only cover the recordings, not the compositions or songs. Though the US National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has licensed SoundCloud, so far the streaming service has no licences in place with any performing rights organisation. According to the email, Soundcloud denies that it even needs a licensing deal with PRS for streams within the UK and Europe.

Buse: “We have asked SoundCloud numerous times to recognise their responsibilities to take a licence to stop the infringement of our members’ copyrights but so far our requests have not been met. Therefore we now have no choice but to pursue the issue through the courts.”

SoundCloud’s lack of proper licensing has been a subject of criticism within the music industry for years. Last year, in an interview with the Musicians Union member magazine, the head of digital for the independent Beggars Group labels, Simon Wheeler, said: “We’ve talked to SoundCloud ever since it started, in its incredibly early days – 2008 was when I first spoke with Alex [Ljung, the co-founder]. We thought the technology was great, the idea was great, and the platform was great – but we absolutely disagreed with their approach to rights and licensing. So therefore, as a company policy we chose not to use them.”

Beggars Group labels include XL Recordings, whose artist roster includes Adele and Damon Albarn. “We’re thinking ‘do we want to enable a platform to have a free ride on our rights’,” Wheeler explained at the time. “And, actually, we’re delivering the publishing rights – not just the rights that we control. We’re thinking: what’s going to happen down the line? Do we want to make this into the new MTV, YouTube whatever the phrase is of this time?”

However, PRS’s latest legal action shows SoundCloud has yet to agree to a licence to pay songwriters.

“If the streaming market is to reach its true potential and offer a fair return for our members, organisations such as SoundCloud must pay for their use of our members’ music,” said Buse. “We believe that all digital services should obtain a licence which grants them permission to use our members’ music and repertoire, in this case the works of songwriters, publishers and composers.”

A SoundCloud spokesperson responded to the Guardian: “It is regrettable that PRS appears to be following this course of action in the midst of an active commercial negotiation with SoundCloud. We believe this approach does not serve the best interests of any of the parties involved, in particular the members of the PRS, many of whom are active users of our platform and who rely on it to share their work and communicate with their fanbase.”

“SoundCloud is a platform by creators, for creators. No one in the world is doing more to enable creators to build and connect with their audience while protecting the rights of creators, including PRS members. We are working hard to create a platform where all creators can be paid for their work, and already have deals in place with thousands of copyright owners, including record labels, publishers and independent artists.”

It’s still unclear if the legal action will result in SoundCloud removing all tracks written by PRS members from the service.